Twelfth International Conference on Health, Wellness & Society

Abstract

Since early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a serious global human threat. It has increased stress levels, forced people to stay home and practice social distancing, which has changed individuals’ lifestyle and diet. There are limited number of studies available related to the effect of the pandemic on American college students’ diet. Specifically, there is no study available about the effect of the pandemic on the diet of Historically Black College and Universities (HBCU) students. In this study a validated survey containing 20 questions (10 pairs) was used. All questions are about an individual’s eating pattern before and during the pandemic. This survey was taken randomly from 102 Morgan State University undergraduate students from different majors. Paired Sample Wilcoxon test was used for assessing the students’ eating patterns before and during the pandemic. The statistical package SPSS version 25.0 was used for statistical analyses. The results of this research revealed that students significantly were eating out fewer times during the pandemic compared to the time before it (P-value=0.004). Moreover, it was found that during the pandemic the frequency of preparing food at home were significantly higher than before the pandemic (P-value=0.001). In addition, this study elucidates that during the pandemic students significantly paid more attention to the nutrition fact of the food labels (P-value=0.001) compared to the time before it. Revealing the positive effect of pandemic on eating habits of students may be helpful for picking strategies to help students keep these healthy habits to improve their diet in future.